Branch Line Britain - celebrating Britain's minor railways

Eastern - Enfield Town review 1

 

6/11/07 Edmonton Green to Enfield Town

Cost of ticket £18.00 (London area travel card)

Dept Edmonton Green: 11.28   Arrive Enfield Town: 11.36

Journey time: 8  mins

Distance: 2 miles  Weather:  sunny but cold

Train type: Class 315 EMUs (double track all the way)

Railway company: One

Frequency of trains - one every half hour

Edmonton Green station is on the Great Eastern Southbury Loop line and has suburban trains passing through it every fifteen minutes throughout the day. It is situated high above the surrounding streets and has two quite long platforms to cope with the long commuter trains, which use this line. As we pull out of the station a mixture of both terraced houses and high-rise blocks of flats can be seen. The train speeds up quite quickly and stays on the main line for about a mile before we pull away to the left and go under the North Circular Road (A604) and slow down to stop at Bush Hill Park. The main station building contains a "Frothy coffee shop", though there are grills over the windows. It has modern vandal proof toilet on the platform. We leave past more rows of terraced houses on the right and much larger semi-detached and detached houses on the left. We then go over a very old-fashioned level crossing, before we slow down as we come into Enfield Town station. The old siding on the right is now part of Tesco, but it still has three platforms. It was completely rebuilt in 198? There are bus shelters on two of the platforms. Interestingly enough there is an old gantry with lights and walkways still in place next to the station, where the sidings once stood.

Summary: A busy suburban branch line, which will no doubt be safe for many years to come. perhaps the TOC needs to take a bit more care of its carriages though. My carriage was a bit messy with spilt coffee on the floor and a couple of broken seats.   MC